Rambus: failure of clockratism

cheesesubsOct 18, 2009, 4:14 AM

rambus, the technology that delay intel's x64 architecture, it had been faulty by letting intel miss the opportunity to catch on amd and made worse/bad product in the last half of 2000s. also it delays the appearance 64 os cause the trouble we have today(driver conflict, hardware support issue still continue on today's windows 7)

first off we all know rambus was the first ram type that use clockrate(speed) instead of depanding on meory size to boost performance(computer menufacturer use only 64mb pc800 when comes with in windows xp combo). that was the major reason why intel was push behind the schedule developing of x64 architecture they were hoping that can prolong 32bit x86 to 2010 with intel's original plan (10ghz x86 netbursts/w "1"gigabyte rambus pc 5000 5ghz on a flagship gaming computer in fiction timeline of 2010, compare to what we have today........imagine that timeframe........zomg...)

however rambus faces its major downfall after raise of dual data rate and x64. eventually disappeared from public audience soon after intel decide to abandon netburst and adapt core architecture. its failure were also because of lacking support for 64bit computing. purely speed but extremely small cache and tiny bandwidth(only 16bit bus). due to these lack feature it is forbidden to run 64bit enviorment. which was the reason intel forced to abandoned rambus

nevertheless, it is still on xbox 360/playstation 3 to continue its "pitiful" lifespan with 32bit "only" operating system(again, limitation....) cell/powerpc g5 were not truly 64bit risc processor due to convertion for xdr dram. using pae(xbox360 and a modded windows 2000 for the gaming interface.....) and "overdose" clockrate to overcome the problem. but again, that can work on console, not on pc.

if not for these idiotic clockrate supporter we may have a better day and better computing enviroment than we are today

Lol???? Troll much? Clock rate *is* important. Last time I checked (which was today), Intel is doing very well with the i7s and even the C2D/C2Qs. And AMDs doing OK (not the best) with the Phenom IIs.

why is the clockrate being so important? a celeron 1500(2.2ghz) can pwn the crap out of pentium extreme edtion 840(3.2ghz) and evenly match with pentium ee 965(3.73). a pentium m 800mhz would simply murder a gallatin 3.46ghz despite gallatin had hyperthread. that is what clockrate about... wow

clockrate is nothing if your architecture sucks..netburst is simply the worst architecture ever presented, but curiously there are still many overclocker favor netburst over core which i don't get it. anyway clockrate is non important unless it is under good platform and architecture with decent instruction set(which was core were doing fine in last 3 years, but still not enough.) which i dont think people should stick with it.

Netburst isn't the worst arch ever. It allowed for both Intel and AMD to learn what not to do and as well Intel learned a few tricks from it. Core 2 and Nehalem all have some influance from Netburst.

The easiest way to see Netbursts influance is that Core 2 can clock pretty damn high. Core 2 was based off of what the Pentium M was based off and thats a Coppermine Pentium III. The Coppermine arch was abandoned due to an inability to clock much over 1GHz. But with help from Netburs, Intel learned how to get it to 3GHz and beyond easily.

And as for RAMBUS, great memory but it was too expensive. RAMBUS 400MHz was about 2x as expensive as DDR1 400. DDR1 400 only ran at 200MHz but was dual channel thus 400MHz. RAMBUS 400MHz was one channel but 400MHz. But it was also 2x the cost.

Netburst isn't the worst arch ever. It allowed for both Intel and AMD to learn what not to do and as well Intel learned a few tricks from it. Core 2 and Nehalem all have some influance from Netburst.

The easiest way to see Netbursts influance is that Core 2 can clock pretty damn high. Core 2 was based off of what the Pentium M was based off and thats a Coppermine Pentium III. The Coppermine arch was abandoned due to an inability to clock much over 1GHz. But with help from Netburs, Intel learned how to get it to 3GHz and beyond easily.

And as for RAMBUS, great memory but it was too expensive. RAMBUS 400MHz was about 2x as expensive as DDR1 400. DDR1 400 only ran at 200MHz but was dual channel thus 400MHz. RAMBUS 400MHz was one channel but 400MHz. But it was also 2x the cost.

And when Intel and AMD went DDR RAMBUS was doomed.

the only lagacy netburst had left to core is fsb(or qdr) which that is why it can boost core to standard clock of 2~3ghz. the rest of part are totally non related.

the only lagacy netburst had left to core is fsb(or qdr) which that is why it can boost core to standard clock of 2~3ghz. the rest of part are totally non related.

Tell that to SMT (HyperThreading) or the nice 2 cache or even on die L3 (I have a old Pentium 4 EE 3.4GHz with a 2MB L3 cache on die).

As I said, Core and nehalem are the same in being based on the Coppermin Pentium III but Netburst was by no means the worst arch since Intel learned a lot of useful tricks from it.

QDR was not really why Core 2 was able to clock high. QDR was just the data rate between the NB memory controller, the memory and the CPU. The CPU itself used a higher multiplier with a base rate of say 200MHz to get to 3GHz +. QDR had nothing to do with that.

Tell that to SMT (HyperThreading) or the nice 2 cache or even on die L3 (I have a old Pentium 4 EE 3.4GHz with a 2MB L3 cache on die).

As I said, Core and nehalem are the same in being based on the Coppermin Pentium III but Netburst was by no means the worst arch since Intel learned a lot of useful tricks from it.

QDR was not really why Core 2 was able to clock high. QDR was just the data rate between the NB memory controller, the memory and the CPU. The CPU itself used a higher multiplier with a base rate of say 200MHz to get to 3GHz +. QDR had nothing to do with that.

maybe i was wrong about qdr(mistaken with quad pumping...my bad) either way quad pumping fsb was one of few lagacy from netburst(the other are hyperthreading). and to make it clear the core was based on dothan. the arch that can trace back to tualatin p3 and cascades xeon. coppermine may be a p6 processor but more 70% of feature are completely different from later tualatin and dothan. different instruction set and larger l1 cache had make it a big different.

and on die l3 cache wasn't really impressive. which intel had made it available on itanium in 1999/2000. 3 years before gallatin.

i really can't think anymore that net burst had remain for later gen cpu....

why is the clockrate being so important? a celeron 1500(2.2ghz) can pwn the crap out of pentium extreme edtion 840(3.2ghz) and evenly match with pentium ee 965(3.73). a pentium m 800mhz would simply murder a gallatin 3.46ghz despite gallatin had hyperthread. that is what clockrate about... wow

clockrate is nothing if your architecture sucks..netburst is simply the worst architecture ever presented, but curiously there are still many overclocker favor netburst over core which i don't get it. anyway clockrate is non important unless it is under good platform and architecture with decent instruction set(which was core were doing fine in last 3 years, but still not enough.) which i dont think people should stick with it.

Are you surprised that when you compared an older processor to a newer one, the newer one wins? This process is called progress, an Athlon X2 could beat a Netburst P4 or an Athlon XP, so would an i7 beat everything out to market.

cheesesubs said:

and on die l3 cache wasn't really impressive. which intel had made it available on itanium in 1999/2000. 3 years before gallatin.

L3 cache is starting to become important, as the Phenom II's are showing.

Rambus made very good tech, but they shot themselves on the foot when they joined JEDEC then patented certain technologies, left JEDEC then started suing the hell out of everyone.

RDRam was expensive, very strict with requirements (always requires 2 modules), and hot. When you compare it to DDR that is cheap, could run with one module, and less heat. Even if RDRam initially outperformed DDR, "cheap and works" wins the day and wins the masses.

RDRam was expensive, very strict with requirements (always requires 2 modules), and hot.

It also typically had higher latency than DDR RAM, which is generally far more important than bandwidth for a CPU; doesn't matter much that your clock rate is twice as high if your latency is four times as many clock cycles. Basically just a disaster all around.

a celeron 1500(2.2ghz) can pwn the crap out of pentium extreme edtion 840(3.2ghz) and evenly match with pentium ee 965(3.73).

This is due to the architecture advances on the Conroe and later CPUs which enabled more instructions to be executed at a lower clock.HOWEVER,speed *is* important,mainly in single threaded applications. Doesn't matter if you have 32 cores+ if it doesn't have enough speed (ie a 32 core CPU @ 600 Mhz) single threaded apps will suffer

a celeron 1500(2.2ghz) can pwn the crap out of pentium extreme edtion 840(3.2ghz) and evenly match with pentium ee 965(3.73).

This is due to the architecture advances on the Conroe and later CPUs which enabled more instructions to be executed at a lower clock.HOWEVER,speed *is* important,mainly in single threaded applications. Doesn't matter if you have 32 cores+ if it doesn't have enough speed (ie a 32 core CPU @ 600 Mhz) single threaded apps will suffer

they had core arch way beforce netburst came out. yes that was "tualatin". a brand new tech that is completely different from coppermine and original p6 architecture. but saddly intel did not take it seriously until several years later.... again....megahertz myth and average joe's single cell brain that cause the tragedy today.

i bet you remember pentium m's performance, which it had prove out class any netburst processor with relatively low clockrate. even athlon seem to be no match in performance per clock. a 800mhz pentium M(dothan) can compete with northwood 3ghz. so even it's under single thread application it is still take advantage over northwood core. so it is all about performance rather than clock itself. a 600mhz single core with good arch can easily murder a 4ghz cpu with terrible arch in single task. again dont go off topic since i'm not talking about multitask feature in this topic. of cause a 32core 600mhz processor with bad instruction and bus width will be as bad as you hiring 32 idiots in factory and screw up the day. but a processor like conroe and dothan can just do well without raise unnecessary clockrate to compete with their opponent.

celeron e1500 is consider to be the low end product of intel nowaday(if we take off atom from the image) a low end line can pwn the high end product that came up 3 year seem to be impressive even thought e1500 is newer. that reminds me that back to 2004 when celeron 2.8ghz had trouble compete with coppermine 1ghz in performance that came up 4 years earlier before celeron 2.8. again it is because netburst just nothing but clockrate pumper, not a real operating chip.

clockrate had fail with bad architecture. intel had put wrong(or worst ) stratage to scaling the market on stupid average joe who doesn't care about performance and leting amd to dominating market for another 5 years which they could have destroy amd in 2000 if they put out taulatin with x64 + quad pumping bus but they didn't. simply because of fallowing average joe's idiotic mind and ruinning the schedule of advancing to 64bit which we could've have it 3~4 years earlier. not these crappy bs megahertz myth that did not well compete with last generation chip but been cheap by just raise up clock that is USELESS.

intel had suffer so much these year because of overclocker and average joe, not because amd's processor is better(they are only better than netburst, that's all)is because intel's leadership is bunch of crap by letting such terrible crap on the stock for nearly "8" years.

Are you complaining that we are better off with out AMD? If Intel took down AMD in 2000 we probably wouldn't have the i7 right now. Competition is good, hell if it wasn't for AMD we'd be paying $400+ for a mid/low end CPU.

FYI: Intel DID try to go native 64 bit. Look at their Itanium line, which is TRUE 64bit, NOT x86-64 (like the current "64" bit CPUs). But sadly, the software wasn't ready. Care to name software that run on IA64?

You're an Intel fanboi aren't you?

And, YES, the AMD X2s were MUCH better than the Pentium M and Pentium 4, clock for clock.

Are you complaining that we are better off with out AMD? If Intel took down AMD in 2000 we probably wouldn't have the i7 right now. Competition is good, hell if it wasn't for AMD we'd be paying $400+ for a mid/low end CPU.

FYI: Intel DID try to go native 64 bit. Look at their Itanium line, which is TRUE 64bit, NOT x86-64 (like the current "64" bit CPUs). But sadly, the software wasn't ready. Care to name software that run on IA64?

You're an Intel fanboi aren't you?

And, YES, the AMD X2s were MUCH better than the Pentium M and Pentium 4, clock for clock.

to me amd's processor are never been good, they were only good when compete to netburst. which taulatin/dothan would good enough to eat them alive, not to mention conroe.

and ia64 had been develop since 1989, it was addressed in super computing and server than home client. intel never took em64(x64) serious until 2003. the only processor that ever debut before 2003 is pentium IIIs(tualatin 512) 1.2~1.4ghz for server. it wasn't software/hardware that weren't ready for x64, is the average consumer who would rather stick up with 32bit old computer for mail checking, aol..and pretty much they don't know anything inside the computer and what 64bit really means. all they know is larger monitor screen and how many mhz/ghz the computer is(they dont know what processor is either...) and some useless fancy feature that doesn't do a ****. this was intel's downfall by following average consumer's desire than truly listin to gamer/enthusiast. (i must admit that amd were doing well at these to keep pace with lazy intel.)

we can live without amd, do you really think there are "amd only" competition game for intel? someone will eventually takeover the place if amd non exist. and core i7 may come sooner than we thought if neteburst weren't there in last few years. nvidia will become intel's greatest threat than amd were did in 2003. which protecting amd will just slow the technology inventions.

Wow, OP you really fail at understanding the concept of competition is good for consumers don't you? Who's there to stop Intel from jacking up prices if AMD goes down? Choices are good for consumers. And yes, the Phenom I failed, but the Phenom IIs offer good performance for the money in the $100-200 range. For many, i5/i7 are still quite expensive when considering overall cost.

Wow, OP you really fail at understanding the concept of competition is good for consumers don't you? Who's there to stop Intel from jacking up prices if AMD goes down? Choices are good for consumers. And yes, the Phenom I failed, but the Phenom IIs offer good performance for the money in the $100-200 range. For many, i5/i7 are still quite expensive when considering overall cost.

i understand the game of processor industy, that is why i'm kept saying that amd wasn't a qualified competitor. bring nothing but rebrand their athlon 64 and dropping price(phenom is a rebrand of athlon while you believe or not). if amd go down it will be someone else to come out for the game. sony/nividia/ibm are far more competitive than amd today. and price/performance? do you honestly believe they are likely want to drop their price in the game at first place? no!! because core2/i7 are simply killing their market share!!!!!that is why they lost 6 billion dollers in 8 straight quarters!! they are simply been domunished by intel, they have no choice but drop their price to survive.

competition is good, but a bad competitor will make the game no different from play alone. i believe either ibm or sony will make good job in processor industry.

they had core arch way beforce netburst came out. yes that was "tualatin". a brand new tech that is completely different from coppermine and original p6 architecture. but saddly intel did not take it seriously until several years later.... again....megahertz myth and average joe's single cell brain that cause the tragedy today.

i bet you remember pentium m's performance, which it had prove out class any netburst processor with relatively low clockrate. even athlon seem to be no match in performance per clock. a 800mhz pentium M(dothan) can compete with northwood 3ghz. so even it's under single thread application it is still take advantage over northwood core. so it is all about performance rather than clock itself.

That is utter bullsh*t. My 1.7GHz banias is roughly equal to a S478 2.6~2.7GHz Pentium 4, I had it run side by side with my 2.53 Ghz P4 and the banias always won by a small margin. The dothan is an incremental upgrade (cache and fsb), and even the upgrades didn't really introduce a major performance difference.

Stop spreading this FUD unless you have really used these devices, which obviously you haven't

cheesesubs said:

and ia64 had been develop since 1989, it was addressed in super computing and server than home client. intel never took em64(x64) serious until 2003. the only processor that ever debut before 2003 is pentium IIIs(tualatin 512) 1.2~1.4ghz for server. it wasn't software/hardware that weren't ready for x64, is the average consumer who would rather stick up with 32bit old computer for mail checking, aol..and pretty much they don't know anything inside the computer and what 64bit really means.

Wrong again, most software weren't ready for 64-bit at the time IA-64 was made. The non-backwards compatibility probably is the thing that killed Itanium, as some software then probably costed millions to replace.

cheesesubs said:

i understand the game of processor industy, that is why i'm kept saying that amd wasn't a qualified competitor. bring nothing but rebrand their athlon 64 and dropping price(phenom is a rebrand of athlon while you believe or not). if amd go down it will be someone else to come out for the game. sony/nividia/ibm are far more competitive than amd today.

AMD will always be intel's rival, as AMD holds cross patent licensing agreements with intel and these agreements are not transferable to other companies. Unless Intel allows other companies to produce x86 processors (which I highly doubt they'll ever do). If AMD ever goes bankrupt, somebody surely would buy the name and their patents in order to produce x86 processors, and in then end it'd still be called AMD.

That is utter bullsh*t. My 1.7GHz banias is roughly equal to a S478 2.6~2.7GHz Pentium 4, I had it run side by side with my 2.53 Ghz P4 and the banias always won by a small margin. The dothan is an incremental upgrade (cache and fsb), and even the upgrades didn't really introduce a major performance difference.

Stop spreading this FUD unless you have really used these devices, which obviously you haven't

Wrong again, most software weren't ready for 64-bit at the time IA-64 was made. The non-backwards compatibility probably is the thing that killed Itanium, as some software then probably costed millions to replace.

AMD will always be intel's rival, as AMD holds cross patent licensing agreements with intel and these agreements are not transferable to other companies. Unless Intel allows other companies to produce x86 processors (which I highly doubt they'll ever do). If AMD ever goes bankrupt, somebody surely would buy the name and their patents in order to produce x86 processors, and in then end it'd still be called AMD.

i use my netbook with pentium m 800mhz dothan with gma900 to play left 4 dead in lowest setting and it ran just fine. while my old northwood 2.6ghz(400mhz quad pump) desktop just refuse to start. that is the different. also i've test both of them in cinebench r10 and pc mark 2004 the pentium m beat northwood with roughly 40% lead (dothan: 1401 nw:1045) even suppass in pc mark 2004(dothan:3506 NW: 3321). again even the most powerful processor in netburst arch is no match to 1337 pentium m dothan in both performance and power consumption.

ia 64 is owned by hewlett packard and intel witch is use on "hp only" super computer in tern of agreement. which intel has no right to modifiy the core unless hewlett packard agree. the backward capability issue was cause by hp!!! not intel since intel cannot mod it without hp's agreement!!! and all the time i was talking about "em64" which it came up in 2001 with p3s tualatin 1.2ghz~1.4ghz. EM64 has more backward capability than amd64 (xp pro x64 is more stable on pentium d/pentium m/core2 than athlon 64)EM64 was a replacement of IA64(hp hold the right) for intel based server. but however they sealed it and tern favor on netburst until amd release their own 64 instruction and forced intel into total submission.

amd only been a good rival during the time when intel's leadership were bunch of crap. hat is the reason i hate craig barrett, he did loads of sh*t that didn't help anything..and he was the one who shut em64 off in early 2002 because he was honest believe people would be satisfied by have 10ghz processor with 512mb pc 5000 rumbus for gaming in 2009(in the fiction timeline of his vision back in 2002) and won't go to 64bit because the pure "speed" will fix the performance issue!